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Stockholm-based BOOST Pharma, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel cell therapies for rare skeletal pediatric diseases, today announced that Sound Bioventures has joined its investor syndicate with a €3.1 million investment.
The financing will support continued clinical development of BT-101, BOOST Pharma’s pioneering stem cell-based therapy for osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), also known as brittle bone disease.
“We are honored to welcome Sound Bioventures to our syndicate – a collaborative, hands-on investor group that shares our vision of transforming care for children living with rare skeletal diseases,” said Ingelise Saunders, Chair of BOOST Pharma. “Their commitment strengthens BOOST Pharma’s position as a leader in cell therapy for genetic bone disorders and enables continued progress of BT-101 towards the clinic.”
This investment into BOOST Pharma reflects a wider pattern of European funding for advanced cell- and gene-therapy ventures in 2025.
In Sweden, Cellcolabs raised €10.3 million to scale manufacturing of mesenchymal stem cells, aiming to reduce production costs and expand access to regenerative treatments. In Germany, Akribion Therapeutics secured €8 million for its programmable cell-depletion platform, while Finland’s StemSight attracted €2.3 million to progress stem-cell therapies for restoring vision. In neighbouring Denmark, Fuse Vectors closed €4.9 million to develop its cell-free viral vector technology supporting gene-therapy delivery.
With both BOOST Pharma and Cellcolabs headquartered in Sweden, the country shows a growing concentration of regenerative-medicine innovation, reinforcing Sweden’s and Europe’s broader commitment to clinical-stage biotech development.
“We believe BOOST Pharma’s innovative approach to treating osteogenesis imperfecta has enormous potential to deliver not only clinical impact for patients but also durable value creation. We look forward to working together to reach new milestones,” said Johan Kördel, Managing Partner at Sound Bioventures.
Founded in 2019, BOOST Pharma is based on years of collaborative research from Karolinska Institute in Stockholm with the focus on novel cell therapy treatments for Osteogenesis Imperfecta. The research teams of associate professor Cecilia Götherström and professor Magnus Westgren have reportedly shown that that treatment with BOOST Cells greatly enhanced the quality of life for patients suffering from this otherwise extremely debilitating disease.
BOOST Pharma has made significant progress advancing BT-101, a novel mesenchymal stem cell therapy intended for children born with OI. BT-101 is designed for early intervention, administered to infants to address the underlying cause of OI and reduce fracture frequency in affected children.
In mice models, BT-101 has shown that cell therapy leads to higher calcium deposition, higher alkaline phosphatase activity, and a high ectopic bone formation.
Once injected, cells will migrate to the bone of patients with OI, where they will engraft and start bone formation. BOOST Pharma obtained human proof-of-concept for BT-101 after four children with Type III and IV OI were treated; the children have been followed for years up to adolescence.
BT-101 allegedly shows great promise for the effectiveness of treating children with OI: the children treated followed their own growth curve, had increased lengthwise growth compared to contemporary OI patients and showed a significant reduction of bone fractures. The cells are considered to be safe with no adverse reactions and no immune responses towards the donor MSC.
BT-101 therapy starts at the prenatal stage, when OI is first diagnosed, or as early as possible after the child is born. By treating this early, BOOST Pharma is addressing the disease at the earliest possible stage, thereby increasing the treatment benefits for the patient in later years, such as strong bones and possibly improved lung function.
With this new investment, BOOST Pharma aims to accelerate clinical development and move closer to delivering the first disease-modifying therapy for OI.
Source.ag, the Amsterdam-based developer of AI software for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), today announced the successful close of its Series B funding round, raising €15.2 million.
The investment was led by Astanor, with strategic participation from investors including seed breeder Enza Zaden and grower cooperative Harvest House. This new capital injection brings Source.ag’s total funding to over €52 million in five years.
Rien Kamman, CEO and Co-founder of Source.ag said: “This Series B round confirms the industry’s belief in our vision: food chain innovation requires AI companies to partner closely with the industry. The grower is the core player, the one putting healthy food on supermarket shelves, and we build the solutions they need to excel. Our ambition is to sustainably feed everyone with sufficient fruits and vegetables. This investment confirms the market views us as the definitive AI partner leading the sector into the future.”
Within the European startup landscape, 2025 has so far seen relatively few publicly reported funding rounds in the AI-driven CEA niche.
Among adjacent developments, UK-based SugaROx secured €1.1 million in August 2025 to scale production of its crop-enhancing biostimulants, reflecting parallel innovation in agri-biotech.
EU-Startups has featured Source.ag in previous coverage highlighting its role in advancing sustainable food production through technology. The company appeared in the 2024 feature 10 promising European startups focused on agriculture, which recognised it among the continent’s most innovative AgriTech ventures. Earlier, Source.ag was also mentioned in the Going Green: European GreenTech Overview (February 2023), which referenced its prior €21.7 million raise and positioned it within Europe’s emerging green technology ecosystem.
Hendrik Van Asbroeck, Managing Partner at Astanor, said: “Our objective is to make the food chain more sustainable, and Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is a necessary technology to achieve this. Since our initial investment, Source.ag has demonstrated that AI is key to scalably delivering climate-resilient food production. They’ve successfully transformed AI from a promising theory into an indispensable operational platform for the world’s largest fresh produce growers.”
Founded in 2020 by Rien Kamman (CEO) and Ernst van Bruggen (CCO), Source.ag develops AI software for horticulture, with the mission to help growers provide everyone on earth with sufficient fruits and vegetables in a sustainable and climate-resilient way. By combining digitisation, AI, and plant and cultivation science, Source.ag’s platform offers an integrated product suite enabling precise forecasting, autonomous crop management, and data centralisation.
While much of the tech world focuses on conceptual AI, Source.ag specialises in measurable, applied AI that supports growers daily. Since its founding, the software has been implemented in over 300 greenhouses covering 2,500 hectares across 18 countries. This acreage contributes to the daily supply of tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumbers for an estimated 40 million people.
CEA is the most efficient solution for managing land and water scarcity, but it is constrained by limitations in human capacity. Source.ag says they overcome this by centralising data and digitising growing knowledge, functioning as an ‘AI co-pilot.’ Among other things, the software enables companies to predict tomato yields with far greater accuracy and fully automate irrigation. This not only boosts production volume but also enhances quality and efficiency across the entire value chain, from grower to consumer.
Jaap Mazereeuw, CEO of Enza Zaden, added: “By collaborating with Source.ag, we integrate a crucial data layer into our seed breeding. Source.ag’s AI strategies, combined with our varieties, minimise risk for the grower and ensure they maximise the potential of our innovative seeds. This is a joint commitment to helping our customers succeed in a rapidly expanding market.”
The funding will accelerate global scaling and product development as Source.ag aims to become the industry leader and expand its AI product suite.
The involvement of seed breeder Enza Zaden and grower cooperative Harvest House highlights the strategic importance of Source.ag’s technology for the entire supply chain.
Jelte van Kammen of Harvest House added: “Our growers experience the value of Source.ag daily, from saving labor time to achieving better forecasting accuracy. That’s why we’ve been working closely with Source.ag for multiple years. We see Source.ag as a strategic partner that equips us to meet our growth targets and secure the competitive data advantage the evolving market demands. It is a direct investment in the sustainability of our cooperative and an efficient fresh produce chain.”
Amsterdam-based Source.ag, a developer of AI software
for controlled environment agriculture (CEA), has raised $17.5 million in a Series B round led by Astanor Ventures, with participation from Enza Zaden and grower
cooperative Harvest House. The round brings total funding to over $60 million.
Source.ag’s platform combines digitisation, AI, and
plant and cultivation science to deliver an integrated suite for precise
forecasting, autonomous crop management, and centralized data. Founded in 2020
by Rien Kamman (CEO) and Ernst van Bruggen (CCO), the company partners with
leading growers to make CEA accessible, profitable, and scalable.
CEA offers an efficient response to land and water
constraints but is limited by human capacity. Source.ag addresses this by
centralising data and codifying growing expertise as an AI co-pilot. The
software supports use cases such as more accurate tomato yield forecasting and
fully automated irrigation, increasing output while improving quality and
efficiency across the value chain from grower to consumer.
Commenting on the round, CEO Rien Kamman said it
reflects industry confidence in Source.ag’s vision and the need for close
collaboration between AI companies and agricultural producers.
The software has been deployed in more than 300
greenhouses across 2,500 hectares in 18 countries, contributing to the daily
supply of tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumbers for an estimated 40 million
people. The investment follows a period of rapid growth with partnerships
across Europe and North America, addressing key challenges in the sector,
including increasing global demand for fresh produce and a shortage of
experienced cultivation expertise.
With the new funding, Source.ag will accelerate global
scaling and product development, expand its AI product suite, and deepen
collaborations with leading horticulture organisations.
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FireDrone gets €161K from Venture Kick for heat-resistant drones
Swiss-based startup
FireDrone has received €161,000 (CHF 150,000) from Venture Kick to develop
heat-resistant drones for extreme environments.
Firefighters and industrial safety teams encounter risks when assessing
high-temperature settings, including burning buildings and industrial furnaces.
Hazards can include toxic smoke, structural instability, and extreme heat, and
conventional drones typically cannot operate in these conditions, limiting
real-time situational awareness.
FireDrone, an Empa spin-off, develops heat-resistant autonomous drones
designed to withstand temperatures of around 200°C and provide real-time hazard
detection in environments where standard systems are ineffective. The platform
uses thermal insulation and cooling to support safety, reduce downtime, and
inform operational decisions.
The company focuses on two primary segments:
high-temperature industrial inspections and public safety. Its initial
addressable market includes cement, steel and aluminium, waste-to-energy,
fertiliser, and glass production, as well as first-responder scenarios where
conventional drones cannot operate due to heat and smoke. Across these sectors,
shared priorities like reducing downtime, improving worker safety, and meeting
regulatory requirements, are addressed by FireDrone’s real-time monitoring in
extreme environments.
The new round will support FireDrone’s go-to-market
strategy by strengthening its business development team, establishing
distribution and maintenance partnerships, advancing product certification, and
turning pilot projects into pre-orders across target industries.
03/11/2025 01:10 PM
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With 800 million people living with obesity worldwide, Warsaw’s Holi secures €3 million to expand its digital treatment platform
Holi, a Polish HealthTech startup building a digital obesity clinic, has raised €3 million in Seed funding to enter new European markets and further develop its data-driven care platform.
The round led by 4growth VC (Poland) with participation from YZR Capital (Germany), Heartfelt Capital (Germany) and a group of business angels.
“Obesity treatment requires continuity and the integration of multiple medical competencies,” says Paweł Seweryn, Founder & CEO of Holi. “Our goal is to deliver a comprehensive solution that leads to real, long-term change in metabolic health. The funding will enable us to scale our model internationally – starting with the Southern and Eastern Europe markets, which are highly receptive to private healthcare and telemedicine – while further developing our technology stack.”
Holi’s Seed round situates the company within a visibly active 2025 European HealthTech and digital obesity-care landscape. Several peers have also attracted capital this year:
Numan (UK, London) raised €51.6 million to expand its preventative digital-health platform, which includes obesity and hormonal health management.
Doctor.One (Poland, Warsaw) secured €4 million to grow its asynchronous chronic-care model – covering obesity among other conditions – into Western European markets.
Ciloa (France, Montpellier) obtained €6.5 million to progress exosome-based therapies targeting metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.
Together, these examples illustrate increasing investor attention to obesity treatment and metabolic-care innovation. The fact that another Polish startup, Doctor.One, raised funds in the same year highlights Poland’s growing presence in European digital healthcare.
EU-Startups previously covered Holi’s €680k pre-Seed round in 2023, underscoring its early traction in the region. Within this context, Holi’s new funding reflects a steady progression from proof-of-concept toward regional scale-up – aligned with broader 2025 trends in hybrid, data-driven models for metabolic health management.
“The next generation of obesity treatment will be hybrid – data and AI for precision, experts for impact. Our platform continuously analyses patient data to adjust therapy in real time, while doctors and specialists step in exactly when human intervention matters most. That’s how we deliver better outcomes with smarter use of medication,” explains Jan Kundziołka, Co-founder of Holi, responsible for product and technology.
Founded in 2023, Holi is a digital obesity clinic that combines multidisciplinary medical care (doctors, psychodietitians, psychologists, physiotherapists) with technology that supports lifestyle change and pharmacotherapy.
It also provides access to GLP-1-based pharmacotherapy, including drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy.
Through its mobile app and specialist platform, Holi aims to deliver personalised treatment plans and continuous patient monitoring. It operates on a subscription-based model and focuses on improving metabolic health by treating the root causes – not just the symptoms – of obesity.
The funds will be allocated to scaling Holi’s medical infrastructure and enhancing its technology capabilities, including diagnostics integration, GLP-1 tracking, automation of care processes and new engagement features designed to sustain patient motivation over time.
According to data provided by the company, patients using the platform achieve on average a 17% reduction in body weight after 12 months – around 1.5x more than pharmacotherapy alone. By combining data-driven dose optimisation with behavioural coaching, Holi reprotedly helps patients cut their medication costs by up to 50%.
According to WHO data, more than 800 million people worldwide are currently living with obesity, and nearly two billion are overweight. Obesity is now classified as one of the largest global public health challenges, contributing to more than 200 medical conditions and driving increasing pressure on healthcare systems.
“Obesity remains one of the most underserved health needs globally. Holi has built a truly efficient care model – virtual, scalable and designed with a genuine value-for-money mindset. It delivers clinically proven outcomes at a price point that makes sense for both patients and the business. This combination of medical impact and smart product design is exactly what convinced us to invest,” says Krzysztof Bachta, Managing Partner at 4growth VC.
The EU obesity treatment market is estimated at €40-50 billion, with private healthcare spending rising rapidly as GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro become more widely adopted by patients.
“Since our initial investment, Holi has shown remarkable progress – both in clinical outcomes and operational execution. The company is scaling fast while maintaining strong medical standards, which is rare in this market. That’s exactly why we decided to significantly increase our backing in this round,” says Markus Feuerecker, Co-founder and Managing Partner at YZR Capital.
The Icon League, a Berlin-based five‑a‑side football competition, announced today they raised €15 million in Series A financing to professionalise league operations, strengthen team rosters and support expansion across Europe.
The round was led by HV Capital – appointing former HV partner David Fischer as group CEO to oversee the next phase of growth. Existing investors are staying on, including Jürgen Klopp (via his family office), entrepreneur Thomas Hagedorn and Luigi Berlusconi’s H14 S.p.A.
The long‑term goal is to build Icon League into an international sports company with strong competitive integrity and a fan‑first culture.
This Series A by The Icon League aligns with a broader pattern of investment activity in Europe’s sports and SportsTech sectors during 2025, though at a considerably higher scale than most publicly disclosed rounds.
In June, ReSpo.Vision (Poland) secured €4.2 million to advance its football analytics technology aimed at deepening fan engagement. Sports Impact Technologies (Ireland) closed a €650k pre-Seed round in August to scale its wearable for detecting head impacts. In October, Jabbr.ai (Denmark) raised €4.3 million to enhance transparency in combat sports through AI-driven analytics, while Weebora (Italy) collected €1.3 million in July to expand its padel-travel marketplace.
Compared with these 2025 examples – focused largely on technology, analytics and niche sports – the Icon League’s raise represents one of the year’s more substantial financings within the European sports entertainment category.
In 2024, Baller League, a German indoor football competition, raised €31 million to expand its six-a-side format internationally – indicating that The Icon League’s Series A continues a regional trend of investor appetite for franchise-based, entertainment-driven football leagues.
Launched in 2024 by Toni Kroos and Elias Nerlich, Icon League has allegedly become one of the most‑followed sports formats in German‑speaking markets among younger audiences.
Season one generated more than 1.3 billion social‑media impressions; current‑season matchdays draw up to 3 million viewers across platforms, with livestreams averaging about 1.4 million.
Live events have sold out with as many as 20,000 spectators. Follower counts on Instagram and TikTok are on par with clubs such as Union Berlin, 1. FC Köln and Hamburger SV, and engagement rates exceed those of other leagues, according to Icon League.
The 14‑team competition uses a US‑style franchise model. Players were drafted centrally in the inaugural season; teams now assemble rosters within defined transfer windows and can market themselves and their athletes independently.
The top four playoff teams share €500k in prize money, including €300k for the champion. Several franchises have raised seven‑figure investments and some have reported six‑figure profits since Season 1, the company said. League revenue streams include ticketing, sponsorships, media rights and merchandise.
Icon League games are played indoors in a five‑on‑five format with two 12‑minute halves and “Rulebreaker” features designed to increase attacking play. Former Bundesliga professionals compete alongside top amateurs, aiming to deliver tight contests and reduce the odds of scoreless draws.
mimic, a Zurich-based robotics company, has raised €13.8 million in Seed funding to deploy its frontier physical AI across industries, enabling robots to handle complex, dexterous tasks that conventional machines cannot.
The round was led by Elaia, alongside Speedinvest, with participation from Founderful, 1st kind, 10X Founders, 2100 Ventures and Sequoia Scout Fund, bringing mimic’s total funding to over €17 million.
“Humanoids are exciting, but there aren’t many industrial scenarios where the full-body form factor truly adds value,” says Stephan-Daniel Gravert, Co-founder and CPO at mimic. “Our approach pairs AI-driven dexterous robotic hands with proven, off-the-shelf robot arms to deliver the same capabilities in a way that is much simpler, more reliable and rapidly deployable.”
Across the continent, startups are attracting significant backing for intelligent and flexible robotic systems: Greece’s Progressive Robotics raised €1.55 million to expand its no-code automation tools for SMEs; Slovenia’s Sunrise Robotics secured €7.3 million for simulation-trained industrial robots; and the UK’s BOW obtained €4.7 million to simplify robot programming.
Larger rounds, such as Energy Robotics in Germany (€11.5 million for AI-driven inspection) and General Intuition in Switzerland (€114 million at the intersection of robotics and gaming), highlight how capital is flowing toward both software-led orchestration and hardware-AI integration.
Within this context, mimic’s Swiss base strengthens the country’s growing robotics cluster and places it among Europe’s more technically ambitious ventures – linking dexterous manipulation and AI foundation-model research with industrial automation needs.
“Our general purpose AI models allow us to automate manual labour in a way that simply was not possible before,” says Elvis Nava, Co-founder and CTO at mimic. “Thanks to our unique focus on human-like dexterity and human data, we are competitive at the robot foundation model layer as well as the application layer.”
Founded in 2024 by Stefan Weirich (CEO), Stephan-Daniel Gravert (CPO), Elvis Nava (CTO), Benedek Forrai (Founding Engineer) and Robert Katzschmann (Scientific Advisor) as a spin-off from ETH Zurich, mimic brings together a multidisciplinary team of 25 engineers, researchers, and operators.
The company enables robots to handle complex, dexterous tasks autonomously. The core focus is developing an AI foundation model and humanoid robotic hands which make human-level dexterity deployable across industries.
By combining advanced AI, scalable hardware, and a unique solution to the data scarcity in robotics, the company aims to build a foundation for the next generation of intelligent automation – robots that can finally do what people do, at the scale industry demands.
“We’re at an inflection point in robotics where learning-based systems meet real industrial needs,” says Stefan Weirich, Co-founder and CEO at mimic. “We make dexterity deployable at scale, closing the gap between what AI can do in the lab and what factories actually need. Europe has the talent, the infrastructure, and the demand, and we’re building the company that brings all of this together.”
On factory floors around the world, millions of intricate manual tasks still depend on human skill. These tasks remain out of reach for traditional automation across industries including manufacturing, assembly and logistics. With labour shortages growing and industries reshoring production amid global uncertainty, the need for versatile and intelligent robots has never been clearer.
Traditional robots excel at repetitive, pre-programmed motions in controlled environments, but require costly setup and custom coding for each task. At the same time, the race to build humanoid robots has drawn billions in investment, led largely by companies in the US and China, but adoption remains very limited. Safety and regulatory concerns, high costs and limited dexterity have all slowed real-world deployment.
According to data provided by the company, the global humanoid and dexterous robotics market alone could reach $38 billion by 2035, within a broader robotics market estimated between $200 billion and $1 trillion by 2040.
mimic looks to tackle this by building frontier physical AI models trained on real-world human demonstrations, using innovative methods to overcome the data scarcity problem in robotics.
Clément Vanden Driessche, Partner at Elaia,says “Elaia is thrilled to lead the Seed round in mimic. The world-class team at mimic is addressing one of the most challenging problems in physical AI: dexterous manipulation. mimic’s breakthrough approach integrates a proprietary robotic hand, state-of-the-art foundation models for robotics, and novel data acquisition and training methods.”
Skilled operators wear mimic’s proprietary data collection devices while performing their daily work on factory floors, capturing detailed movement data from live production settings without disrupting operations. These demonstrations are then used to train AI models via imitation learning, enabling mimic’s humanoid robotic hands to reliably reproduce human technique.
The company’s physical AI models ensure that robots autonomously react to changing positions and orientations of objects, handle disturbances and self-correct their actions, seamlessly operating in environments designed for humans.
Vincent Faber, Investment Manager at Elaia adds “This enables autonomous, versatile manipulation and unlocks a previously untapped segment of the automation market, where the demand for flexible solutions continues to grow.”
mimic’s technology is already being piloted with top-tier manufacturers, including Fortune 500 companies and global automotive brands. mimic is also partnering with leading multinational logistics providers and seeing strong customer demand across many other labour-intensive sectors.
Andreas Schwarzenbrunner, General Partner at Speedinvest, says, “At Speedinvest, we’ve always believed that Europe’s strength lies in marrying world-class engineering with foundational research. With mimic, we see exactly that: a platform that unlocks human-level dexterity with frontier AI and solves billion-dollar problems on factory floors today. This is the moment Europe steps forward to compete and lead in the new era of AI and robotics.”
The FutureTravel Summit 2025 returned to Barcelona on 30 October, bringing together almost 500 of the brightest innovators in the travel industry at the iconic Antigua Fábrica Estrella Damm.
With a packed agenda of panels, keynotes, and networking, the highlight of the day was once again the FutureTravel Pitch Competition.
Ten early-stage TravelTech startups took the stage to compete for a game-changing €350k prize package. After one of the closest votes the jury has ever faced (and we mean close!), ReLUGG, a German startup that provides instant luggage compensation, was crowned the winner.
The pitch finalists
The competition featured ten ambitious startups from across Europe and beyond, tackling real-world challenges in travel with cutting-edge tech and creative business models. And while ReLUGG eventually took home the grand prize, each of the other nine startups brought something unique and worthwhile to the fifth edition of the FutureTravel Summit:
ALOE: Founded in 2023, ALOE is the experience layer for hospitality, a plug-and-play platform where hotels can sell their own services and offer curated experiences from local providers through an integrated marketplace. The Italian startup allows guests to book everything in one place, while hotels earn a commission on every sale. It simplifies the booking, management, and payment processing of external experiences, helping hotels unlock new revenue streams.
ALTEK AI: Headquartered in Norway, Altek AI helps hotels automate customer service. Its AI platform connects directly to hotel systems such as the PMS and booking engine, allowing the assistant to answer questions, make bookings, and upsell in real time. Their solution is designed to improve the guest experience, reduce staff workload, and increase revenue.
Controlá: Founded in 2023, Controlá installs plug-and-play smart devices to automate energy management in vacation rentals, offices, and coworking spaces. Their system detects presence and environmental conditions to automatically control air conditioning, lighting, and water heating, reducing energy consumption without compromising user comfort. Based in Spain, they promote sustainability adapted to your needs.
Cora: Set up in 2023 in Italy, Cora develops an operations management platform powered by AI and designed for every type of accommodation that seamlessly allows the control of any hospitality facility. It streamlines tasks like housekeeping, maintenance, and internal communication through a cloud-based dashboard and mobile app. The platform helps improve staff productivity, reduce costs, and ensure consistent service quality.
Cumbaya: Founded in 2024, this Belgian startup offers an AI-powered platform that simplifies trip planning, booking, and management. Users can instantly generate personalised itineraries based on their interests, needs, and budget. The app also provides real-time recommendations and dynamic tools to adjust plans on the go, streamlining the entire travel experience.
HostyAI: Straddling Portugal and Australia and founded in 2024, HostyAI offers a SaaS platform that helps short-term rental hosts and property managers automate guest communication. Their AI-powered assistant handles inquiries, sends personalised messages, and supports guests 24/7 across platforms like Airbnb, WhatsApp, and email. By integrating with reservation systems, it adapts responses based on booking details, house rules, and local regulations.
Via.ai: Based in the UK, Via.ai operates at the intersection of AI technology and customer engagement. Founded in 2023, the startup enables brands to integrate a branded, conversational assistant into their existing apps or websites, offering users real-time, personalised travel and lifestyle recommendations. These intelligent agents are available 24/7, continuously learning from interactions and are designed to turn everyday engagement into meaningful, loyalty-building experiences.
Voyla: Founded in 2024, this Hong Kong-based startup addresses a major pain point for Gen Z travellers who save hundreds of posts on social media and platforms like Google Maps, but never organise them. Voyla is building a personal AI agent that captures and learns users’ travel preferences from scattered social media saves. The AI agent analyses shared posts to understand each user’s unique travel vibe, then automatically organises and recommends personalised destinations that match their interests.
Yaay: Headquartered in Denmark and founded in 2024, Yaay is an AI- and creator-powered travel app that transforms users’ favourite TikTok and Instagram travel videos into bookable trips. Users can save destinations, hotels, experiences, or restaurants to Yaay, organise them in visual moodboards, and let the AI find a way to book it all. Alternatively, they can discover shoppable videos from trusted travel creators and the wider community directly on the platform.
The jury and the prize
This year’s judging panel included top-tier VCs and TravelTech experts: Michael Morvan(ROCH Ventures), Andrea Oliver(Nauta Capital), Jose Gaytan de Ayala (Kinnevik), and Elena Ruiz Requena (Amadeus Ventures). The vote was exceptionally close, underlining just how competitive the field was this year.
The winner received a prize package valued at €350k, including:
Founded in 2024 and based in Germany, ReLUGG is tackling a well-known travel headache: delayed or missing luggage. The platform partners with airlines to provide instant compensation and deliver luggage essentials to affected passengers within 30 minutes of landing.
Their business model charges airlines per passenger served – no upfront costs or long-term commitments. The tech integrates directly with airline systems and passenger communications, making activation, eligibility checks, and reporting as seamless as the service itself.
“Winning the Pitching Competition for ReLUGG at FutureTravel Summit 2025 is a pivotal milestone for us. The prize package will enable us to further develop our V.3 of our product. We are grateful to have shared the stage with some of the most exciting startups in TravelTech, and we look forward to building the industry with all our partners,” shared Melilizwe Gqobo, Founder and CEO.
The impact of the FutureTravel Summit
With each passing year, the FutureTravel Summit continues to position itself as a cornerstone event for those shaping the next wave of travel innovation.
The 2025 edition brought together nearly 500 startup Founders, investors, corporates, and travel executives to share insights and build connections. While ReLUGG walked away with the top prize, all finalists demonstrated the creativity, agility, and technical vision that define the future of travel.
The Summit once again proved that startups are not merely supporting players in the travel industry – they’re setting the pace.
Once again, congratulations to ReLUGG, the winner of this year’s pitch competition, and thank you to all the participants and attendees who made the summit a resounding success.
Here’s to shaping the future of travel, one innovation at a time.
Made possible by sponsors
Trengo is an AI-powered customer engagement platform that helps thousands of businesses world-wide transform their customer conversations into meaningful relationships. Seamlessly integrating all your customers’ preferred communication channels into one intuitive AI-powered inbox, Trengo empowers your team to become customer engagement pros who generate leads, boost revenue, and create exceptional customer experiences. Great service is just the start; Trengo helps your team deliver delight on every channel.
Alpitour World is the Italian leader in travel and the largest integrated company in the tourism sector. A symbol of professionalism, innovation, and discovery, it has been in the public imagination for over 75 years as the group that helps Italians travel. The group is organized into 5 key divisions that cover the entire tourism supply chain: Tour Operating, Aviation, Hotel Management, Incoming, and Travel Agencies. Each represents an area of excellence in its respective sector, and together, they contribute to the group’s stability and constant evolution towards new forms of vacation. With a team of 5,000 employees and 6 key offices in Italy, Alpitour World serves over 2.8 million travelers each year through subsidiaries in 14 countries.
Travelier is a global leader in travel tech, transforming intercity transportation in a $198B market. Its digital platforms include 12Go, Bookaway.com, Plataforma10, DeOnibus and Traveling.com, enabling seamless online booking of ferry, bus and train tickets, with more than 17 million sold each year. Its B2B arm includes SeatOS in Asia and Sisorg in Latin America, both providing transportation management systems. In 2024, Travelier introduced Travelier Connect, the largest GDS for ground and sea transport, giving partners access to intercity ticket sales through a single API. The company works worldwide with over 19,000 operators in 134 countries.
Being Southern Europe’s fastest-growing omnichannel payments platform, MONEI helps merchants in sectors from e-commerce and physical retail to restaurants and service-based businesses. It enables them to sell more, save on transaction fees, and reduce risk with its advanced payment services.
Ukraine has long been recognised for its world-class engineering talent, however, Russia's invasion of Ukraine — and the preceding years of COVID-19, which impacted most students globally — have made education even more challenging as infrastructure has been destroyed, thousands of specialists have been displaced, and the need to foster Ukraine's economy through innovation has never been more urgent.
SET University is a Kyiv-based institution rethinking the traditional model of higher education by combining science, entrepreneurship, and technology.
Founded in December of 2021 (two months before Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine), it is built on the belief that education can rapidly scale impact and empower Ukrainians not only to develop strong technical skills but to turn those skills into products, companies, and solutions with global relevance.
I spoke to Iryna Volnytska, President of SET University, to learn all about it.
A dual track: tech + entrepreneurship
Unlike conventional universities, where students graduate with theoretical knowledge, SET focuses on real-world application. Master's students build a startup instead of writing a thesis, supported by international lecturers, founders, and industry mentors.
Volnytska is not a traditional president, any more than SET University is a conventional higher education institute.
Following a career in business, including a role as CEO of a large tech company, she decided to travel to Myanmar in search of meaning and lived in a Buddhist temple for a while.
She revealed, "That's where I understood that only education can scale impact fast.
Many terrible things in the world would never happen if people had stronger critical thinking skills."
Breaking the Soviet education legacy
Originally from Ukraine, Volnytska wanted to create an impact at home. She asserts:
"People assume Ukraine has a strong STEM education because we have strong engineers — but that's a myth. We inherited a Soviet legacy where entrepreneurship was literally forbidden; you could go to jail for it.
We had great STEM professors once, but many moved to tech because the salaries were incomparable — $4,000 a month in tech versus $300 in academia.
As a result, we produced engineers, but not products. The added value always left Ukraine — usually to the US, because 90 per cent of startup capital comes from there."
With SET University, her goal is to build not just a tech university, but a university that teaches how to turn technology into business, so value stays in Ukraine.
The university was registered just two weeks before the full-scale invasion. At the time, Volnytska was travelling from Asia to Ecuador and got stuck at Miami Airport. She recounts that when she returned to Ukraine, she launched the university two months later.
"I knew this war would be hybrid — digital — and education would be crucial. Infrastructure was destroyed, people needed reskilling, cybersecurity became vital, and we had to learn to build products, not just code."
Build a startup instead of a thesis
SET University's Master's programmes run for 1.5 years and are built around a dual model that blends advanced technology education with entrepreneurship.
On the technical side, students gain hands-on expertise in areas such as AI, cybersecurity, software engineering, and emerging technologies, taught by a mix of international lecturers, founders, and industry practitioners. The focus is on real-world application rather than theory, with case studies, practical labs, and exposure to current industry challenges.
What makes the programme unique is that instead of writing a traditional thesis, students are required to build their own startup or product as their final project.
The entrepreneurial track functions like an accelerator: students identify a problem, validate it with users, design an MVP, develop a business model, and pitch to external experts or investors. While not all graduates will become founders, they leave with strong product thinking, problem-solving, and communication skills — the capabilities needed to build or scale tech solutions.
Although the format is innovative, the Master's is officially licensed and accredited by the Ukrainian Ministry of Education. SET also maintains academic standards comparable to those of European institutions, ensuring that graduates earn a recognised degree.
Entrepreneurship under pressure: "We don't have a choice"
Across all of its programmes, SET University has already launched dozens of student startups. Beyond the Master's, it also runs bootcamps, hackathons, and ideathons —" we spark entrepreneurship," asserts Volnytska.
"Many of these initiatives lead to startups with impact not only in Ukraine, but globally.
Due to Ukraine's numerous issues, we continually seek technological solutions."
I was curious how the university fosters entrepreneurs, given that, unfortunately, startup success rates – everywhere — are rather low. Volnytska asserts:
"True — we're not born entrepreneurs, and success rates everywhere are low, not only in Ukraine.
But here, motivation is ten times stronger because we don't have a choice. Almost every engineer is building something — especially related to defence or supporting the country,"
SET University's main audience is software engineers with around five years of experience — many already hold a Master's degree, and therefore the program effectively becomes a degree one. "
They want to launch a product or develop a product mindset. Not all will become founders, but they'll learn problem-solving, communication, pitching, and product thinking — skills they can apply anywhere," shared Volnytska.
Microcredentials and accelerators for wider impact
SET University also offers microcredentials focused on specific tech skills, including solution architecture, AI, and more, as well as industry-specific entrepreneurial boot camps in Ukraine.
Ukrainian science is struggling, so the university launched the "Science to Market Accelerator" with UC Berkeley to help professors across Ukraine monetise their research and turn it into startups, a novel approach for Ukrainian academia.
The University is supported by a growing network of philanthropic, academic, corporate, and government partners who share its mission to strengthen Ukraine’s innovation ecosystem. The Tokarev Foundation plays a key role as an institutional partner, funding scholarships for veterans, women, and high-performing technologists, helping ensure access to education for those with the potential to drive change. The University also works closely with USAID’s Competitive Economy Program in Ukraine to foster tech-driven economic resilience.
Volnytska explained that the University also co-founds startups with its lecturers:
"One of our professors built cybersecurity at Tesla and Uber.
After Russia hacked his alma mater, he co-founded a cybersecurity startup with us, connecting Ukraine and his US university. We now have legal entities in both countries."
Locally, SET benefits from Ukraine’s DIIA.The city's legal framework, which supports IP protection and an attractive tax model for startups, further enables its students and spinouts to build businesses that can scale within Ukraine.
She admits that IP protection has always been a challenge — investors don't want Ukrainian-based IP due to corruption risks.
"That's why the government created DIIA.City, a legal framework protecting IP and offering one of the most efficient tax systems in the world. We pay only 5 per cent tax on salaries. For business, it's extremely efficient to build in Ukraine."
The challenge of building a University in war time
Volnytska admits that building a uiversity during a war is incredibly hard. Higher education is expensive, and students often struggle to afford it.
Further, companies often donate to war efforts rather than education, and fundraising abroad is also challenging because they prioritise humanitarian aid.
"Right now, I'm focused on fundraising because we want to scale impact. We need to build hardware and cybersecurity labs.
Ukraine is the most cyber-attacked country in the world — we must turn our experience into expertise and then monetise it.
Around 40 per cent of our students receive full scholarships, but tuition covers only 10–15 per cent of costs. So scaling requires investment."
How you can help
According to Volnytska, there are many ways that those of us living outside of Ukraine can help.
She asserts,
"It starts with something as small as the milk in your morning coffee. If it's produced in Ukraine, you're helping. It is extremely hard to create value inside Ukraine and even harder to export it."
Further, partnerships are crucial, and SET University welcomes lecturers, mentors, and partners who can support its curriculum or open doors.
Or, companies can enrol in B2B microcredentials — especially in cybersecurity.
"Honestly, I haven't seen a better cybersecurity course because ours is based on real attacks from the frontline. We can train companies using real-world attack scenarios, not textbook theory," shared Volnytska.
In September last year, SET University partnered with a US-based startup, Hilltop Technologies, to launch SET Cyber Labs. The new cybersecurity startup provides 24/7 tailored solutions for businesses, non-profits, and academic institutions.
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03/11/2025 09:40 AM
Cologne-based octonomy raises €18.5 million to advance agentic AI for complex service workflows
octonomy, a Cologne-founded AI company developing agentic systems for complex enterprise support and service workflows, raised around €18.5 million ($20 million) led by Macquarie Capital Venture Capital, with participation from Capnamic, NRW.Bank, and the TechVision Fund. Bringing the company’s total funding to $25 million.
Founded in 2024, Octonomy provides heavy equipment industries with AI systems capable of processing complex, multi-source information such as technical manuals, schematics, standard operating procedures (SOPs), live maintenance logs, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) data with a verified accuracy of 95%. The company’s technology aims to reduce unplanned downtime, accelerate service response, and improve scalability across enterprise environments.
Whereas most AI assistants struggle with unstructured or intricate data, octonomy’s proprietary agentic architecture enables technical staff to interpret and act on a broad range of documentation in real time.
“Eighty per cent of all AI projects fail as soon as things get complex. That’s exactly where we come in,” said Sushel Bijganath, founder and CEO of octonomy.“Our agents deliver verified 95+ per cent response quality, empowering teams often accustomed to 50 per cent accuracy rates with standard AI platforms. With Macquarie Capital Venture Capital at our side, we gain an international partner to make octonomy broadly available across Europe and the USA.”
Beyond its accuracy and data capabilities, octonomy’s AI can be deployed in under 20 days, integrating directly into existing enterprise systems without the need for data migration.
“octonomy has created an AI solution that automates complex knowledge work at expert level. It’s not just a chatbot evolution, but a genuine AI revolution, especially in technical support,” said Elmar Broscheit, Global Co-Head of Macquarie Capital Venture Capital. “octonomy demonstrates how complex enterprise processes can be automated precisely, securely, and at scale with proprietary intellectual property.”
“Industry has not made use of the potential of modern AI technology.” This is according to Jörg Binnenbrücker, founding partner of Capnamic. “octonomy is developing an exceptional tool. They translate expert knowledge into scalable, operational intelligence and leverage experience for productivity. These are exactly the kinds of technologies that industry needs to transfer AI from the research stage to value creation.”
octonomy’s AI is designed to handle complex technical support cases autonomously, operating as a “digital twin” of a company’s top technician. The system can interpret diagrams, schematics, manuals, and live system data with 95% hallucination-free accuracy, resolving customer and technician requests in real time.
The company’s AI platform is GDPR and EU AI Act compliant, built in Germany with ISO 27001 certification, and integrates directly with enterprise systems such as Salesforce, SAP, SharePoint, and Zendesk without data migration. Its no-code configuration allows business analysts to automate workflows quickly, without extensive IT projects or consultants.
At the core of its offering is a Supervisor Agent that coordinates a team of digital specialists to deliver end-to-end issue resolution. For example, when a customer reports an error, one AI agent analyses the wiring diagram, another checks ERP data for part availability, and a third verifies warranty coverage. Within seconds, the system produces a complete resolution — accurate, documented, and ready to be shared with the customer.
Last week, we tracked more than 60 tech funding deals worth over €2.4 billion, and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe.
For founders, investors, and professionals across the startup ecosystem, time is the most valuable resource. Yet, many spend hours every week buried in their inbox, sifting through newsletters, notifications, and low-priority updates. According to several productivity studies, email remains one of the biggest daily distractions in the modern workplace. This is where SaneBox steps in.
An AI-powered email management platform designed to bring order to chaotic inboxes. Instead of manually sorting messages, users can automatically organise incoming emails into relevant folders. The tool identifies what is important and moves everything else out of sight, allowing users to focus on communication that matters.
It requires no installation and works across all major email clients, including Gmail, Outlook and Hotmail. With positive reviews from TechCrunch, Forbes and The New York Times, SaneBox has built a reputation for simplicity and effectiveness, reportedly saving the average user around 2.5 hours per week.
Designed for professionals who value efficiency
If you are reading this, you operate in a fast-paced environment where every minute counts. SaneBox recognises this and offers a suite of features designed to help professionals reclaim their time. Its signature feature, SaneLater, moves unimportant emails into a separate folder, ensuring that only critical messages appear in the inbox.
SaneReminders: Automatically prompt follow-ups if an email goes unanswered for several days.
Snooze Folders: Temporarily hide an email until the user is ready to deal with it.
DoNotDisturb: Pause incoming emails during focus periods or time off.
Email Deep Clean: Remove outdated or unnecessary emails in bulk.
SaneAttachments: Store attachments securely in cloud storage.
SaneDigest: Provide a daily summary of email activity for better oversight.
Each feature is designed to help users focus on meaningful work while reducing the mental load of constant notifications and digital clutter. Want to give it a try? They have a 14-day free trial, after which subscription plans start at $7 per month and go up to $36 per month, depending on the number of accounts and features selected
A practical solution for startup teams
Email overload is a universal problem, but it can be particularly disruptive in startup environments where multitasking and quick decision-making are part of daily life. Founders, early-stage employees, investors, etc, receive over a hundred emails per day, ranging from investor updates to partnership proposals.
SaneBoxenables them to prioritise effectively, ensuring that important communications from clients, colleagues or investors are never lost in the noise. It also adapts to individual workflows, allowing users to customise rules and folders according to their needs.
The company even offers a one-to-one concierge service during the trial period, where users can consult with an email expert to configure SaneBox for their specific habits and objectives.
GitLaw, an AI legal companion built for businesses, has
raised a $3 million pre-seed round led by Jackson Square Ventures, with
participation from Flex Capital, Background Capital, and several angel
investors.
Founded in 2025 by serial entrepreneur Nick Holzherr,
GitLaw’s mission is to make legal documents radically more accessible through
AI-driven automation.
GitLaw’s agent enables startups to draft, redline, and
review agreements, including NDAs, SaaS contracts, and investor terms, using a
library of more than 1,000 lawyer-reviewed templates. It generates ready-to-use
contracts in minutes and can review or compare incoming documents against
trusted legal standards.
Unlike generic AI tools, GitLaw’s agent combines
community-built legal knowledge with multi-model AI reasoning that mirrors how
lawyers work.
Commercially minded lawyers won’t be out of work, but most
day-to-day contract tasks can now be done faster, cheaper, and often more
accurately by automation,
said Nick Holzherr, GitLaw’s founder and CEO.
Over 80 per cent of US small businesses lack in-house legal
support, and outsourcing can cost growth-stage startups more than $20,000 per
year for contracts, compliance, and investor paperwork. GitLaw aims to automate
80–90 per cent of this work to reduce costs while maintaining high accuracy and
security.
While many founders turn to general-purpose AI tools to generate
or review contracts, Holzherr warns that this approach can be risky:
“Generic
AI tools speak with extreme confidence, but their answers often have serious
flaws. For example, some only read a fraction of a contract, but still claim to
have read it all. I’ve been really surprised at how lazy some of the tools are,
probably because they’re trying to save tokens (their cost), and that’s
dangerous when legal precision matters.”
GitLaw takes a structured approach. Its agent coordinates
multiple AI models and workflows to handle tasks comprehensively and
methodically. Drawing on an expanding set of lawyer-approved templates that cover NDAs, contractor agreements, shareholder terms, and SaaS licenses, it pairs
professional-grade accuracy with AI speed. Built for businesses rather than law
firms, GitLaw enables teams to prepare agreements efficiently with minimal oversight and legal expertise.
Legal
work shouldn’t take six weeks for a three-day project, and businesses shouldn’t
have to choose between moving fast and staying legally safe. GitLaw is my way
of fixing that, helping founders get professional-quality contracts instantly
without needing a big budget,
Holzherr added.
The funding will support the launch of GitLaw’s AI agent,
enabling businesses to draft, review, and negotiate contracts in minutes at no
cost, while accelerating product development and expanding the platform across
the US and UK.
03/11/2025 08:10 AM
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03/11/2025 05:58 AM
octonomy raises $20M to accelerate agentic AI for complex service workflows
octonomy, the
German-founded AI company building agentic systems for complex enterprise
support and service workflows, has completed a new seed round totalling $20
million. The round was led by Macquarie Capital Venture Capital, with
participation from Capnamic, NRW.Bank, and the TechVision Fund.
This brings octonomy’s total funding to $25 million since its
founding 15 months ago.
Octonomy provides agentic AI “digital coworkers” that handle
complex, technical support tasks with human-like accuracy. The company develops
AI systems for heavy-equipment industries that ingest and process diverse
technical sources such as manuals, schematics, SOPs, live maintenance logs, and
ERP data. These systems achieve around 95 per cent accuracy, helping reduce
unplanned downtime, accelerate service response, and improve scalability.
Unlike many assistants that struggle with complex or
unstructured inputs and are limited to simple FAQs or text queries, octonomy’s
proprietary agentic architecture is designed to let technical teams interpret
and act on a wide range of documentation.
Beyond its accuracy and data capabilities, octonomy can
be deployed in under 20 days, integrating directly into existing
enterprise systems without migration.
According to Octonomy founder and CEO Sushel Bijganath,
around 80 per cent of AI projects fail once they encounter real complexity, precisely
the challenge the company aims to solve.
Our agents deliver verified 95+ per cent response quality,
empowering teams often accustomed to 50 per cent accuracy rates with standard AI
platforms. With Macquarie Capital Venture Capital at our side, we gain an
international partner to make octonomy broadly available across Europe and the
USA.
The new funding will be used to accelerate the development
and deployment of Octonomy’s agentic AI platform for complex service workflows.
03/11/2025 06:10 AM
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03/11/2025 04:00 AM
Toni Kroos’ The Icon League scores €15M to take five-a-side football global
The Icon League, a five‑a‑side soccer competition co‑founded by Toni Kroos (German former professional footballer who played as a midfielder) and Elias Nerlich (German livestreamer, YouTuber, and former e-sports athlete), has raised €15 million in Series A financing.
What is The Icon League?
The 14‑team competition uses a US‑style franchise model. Players were drafted centrally in the inaugural season; teams now assemble rosters within defined transfer windows and can market themselves and their athletes independently. The top four playoff teams share €500,000 in prize money, including €300,000 for the champion.
Several franchises have raised seven‑figure investments, and some have reported six‑figure profits since Season 1.
League revenue streams include ticketing, sponsorships, media rights and merchandise.
Icon League games are played indoors in a five‑on‑five format with two 12‑minute halves and “Rulebreaker” features designed to increase attacking play.
Former Bundesliga professionals compete alongside top amateurs, aiming to deliver tight contests and reduce the odds of scoreless draws.
Launched in 2024, Icon League has become one of the most‑followed sports formats in German‑speaking markets among younger audiences.
Season one generated more than 1.3 billion social‑media impressions; current‑season. Matchdays draw up to 3 million viewers across platforms, with livestreams averaging around 1.4 million.
Live events have sold out with as many as 20,000 spectators. Follower counts on Instagram and TikTok are on par with clubs such as Union Berlin 1. FC Köln, and Hamburger SV, and engagement rates exceed those of other leagues, according to Icon League.
HV Capital led the funding, with former HV partner David Fischer appointed as group CEO to oversee the next phase of growth.
Existing investors are staying on, including Jürgen Klopp (via his family office), entrepreneur Thomas Hagedorn and Luigi Berlusconi’s H14 S.p.A. David Fischer, who joins from HV Capital, will oversee the next phase of growth.
Proceeds will be used to professionalise league operations, strengthen team rosters and support expansion across Europe. The long‑term goal is to build Icon League into an international sports company with strong competitive integrity and a fan‑first culture, according to the statement.
Lead image: The Icon League.
03/11/2025 04:10 AM
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02/11/2025 05:15 PM
Sam Altman says ‘enough’ to questions about OpenAI’s revenue
In a motion to dismiss filed earlier this week, Meta denied claims that employees had downloaded pornography from Strike 3 Holdings to train its artificial intelligence models.
31/10/2025 07:10 PM
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The Man Who Invented AGI
the-man-who-invented-agi
31/10/2025
Everyone is obsessed with artificial general intelligence—the stage when AI can match all feats of human cognition. The guy who named it saw it as a threat.
31/10/2025 07:10 PM
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Tattd gave four TechCrunch writers tattoos at Startup Battlefield
This week, we tracked more than 60 tech funding deals worth over €2.4 billion, and over 10 exits, M&A transactions, rumours, and related news stories across Europe., and related news stories across Europe.
In addition to this week's top financials, we've also indexed the most important/industry-related news items you need to know about.
If email is more your thing, you can always subscribe to our newsletter and receive a more robust version of this round-up delivered to your inbox. Either way, let's get you up to speed.
Paris-based deeptech Altrove has raised $10 million in seed funding to scale production of AI-designed, sustainable alternatives to critical materials such as rare earths.
The round was led by Alven, with participation from Bpifrance’s Digital Venture fund, Contrarian Ventures, and Emblem, bringing Altrove’s total funding to $14 million.
Existing investors include Entrepreneurs First and notable angels such as Thomas Clozel (Owkin), Julien Chaumond (Hugging Face), Thomas Plantenga (Vinted), and Michal Valko (formerly at Meta).
Founded in 2024 by Martin and Laulainen, Altrove plans to use the funding to expand its laboratories, grow its team, and scale production of AI-designed materials from grams to industrial volumes within two years.
Altrove is developing AI-predicted materials that aim to reduce reliance on imported resources and strengthen industrial sovereignty in Europe. Its proprietary platform combines artificial intelligence, automated lab synthesis, and self-learning characterisation to accelerate material discovery from years to weeks.
“Western nations cannot afford to be dependent on imports for the very materials that power electrification,” said Thibaud Martin, co-founder and CEO of Altrove.
Altrove has already reached several technical milestones, including the development of rare-earth-free and cobalt-free magnetic materials for high-performance motors and non-toxic, lead-free compounds for sensors and actuators. The company has secured more than a dozen partnerships with major players in automotive, energy, and heavy industry, with the first products expected to launch within two years.
“Our technology ensures that our AI-designed materials consume the resources we want them to consume, without dependence on other nations' resources,” said Dr Joonatan Laulainen, co-founder and CTO.
Photo by Takemaru Hirai on Unsplash
31/10/2025 03:10 PM
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Weekly funding round-up! All of the European startup funding rounds we tracked this week (Oct. 27-31)
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